


Scraps

by Margo_Kim



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-04-25 04:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margo_Kim/pseuds/Margo_Kim
Summary: Ficlets originally posted on tumblr, just long enough to be scooped together and posted here as well.





	1. physicians by their love are grown cosmographers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tomas/marcus sick fic

“You’re sick,” Tomas pronounces.

Marcus doesn’t deny it. He tries to, but then his lungs flip inside out and he’s back on the bed, hunched over and hacking up what feels like a fork lodged in his gullet. Tomas sits down next to him and rubs his back. Marcus’ chest gives one more spasm and he rasps out, “Don’t thump me.”

“I’m not going to thump you.”

“People always start whacking each other when they start coughing.”

“Am I whacking you?”

“Not yet,” Marcus says distrustfully, but his lungs are too ragged to exhale an adverb, it seems, because he’s back to hacking again.

God, he should just buckle down and do it, cough until he pukes or mucous comes up, either or, but it hurts so much like someone threw a match into his lungs and he can keep the fire from smoldering too bad so long as he doesn’t breathe. When the cough mutes enough that he can ignore the urge, he breathes an inch at a time. 

Tomas keeps rubbing his back. Marcus gives up on dignity and rests his head on Tomas’ shoulder.

"Shit,” Marcus says.

Tomas sweeps Marcus’ hair back, even though there’s nothing much to sweep. It’s a temperature check, and Tomas says, “You’re burning up.”

That makes sense, considering how cold Marcus has been. He thought he’d freeze to death before the demon fucked off. “Happens sometimes,” Marcus says. “I’ll be fine by morning.”

Tomas makes a doubtful noise. It’s nice. Doubting like that. Most people don’t when Marcus says he’ll be fine. 

God, Tomas’ shoulder feels so warm. 

They kissed for the first time one week ago and they haven’t said much about it since. Shy, so shy. Holding hands in the car as one of them drives, or holding open the door for the other one to go through. Tomas wakes up early every day, doesn’t matter what time he went to bed, and when Marcus wakes, the coffee is made, which isn’t anything new for the two of them which is to say it’s wildly new for the state of Marcus’ life. For the last few days, Marcus’ clothes have been folded and ready for him. Complete with socks and underwear folded on the top.

This isn’t a good time to kiss Tomas. Marcus hasn’t fried his brain enough to forget that. 

He kisses Tomas’ shoulder anyway and then wipes it off with his sleeve. “Germs,” he says. 

Tomas sweeps back Marcus’ hair again, except Marcus has short hair, too short to stick to the sweat popping on his forehead, so maybe Tomas is just stroking his head. That must be it. His nails scrape Marcus’ scalp, back and forth and back and forth, and Marcus sinks deeper and deeper until he must be heavy as the bed they’re sitting on. “Come on then,” Tomas says, as if from miles away, calling down from the summit of a mountain Marcus won’t ever climb, and now Marcus is falling, but not falling. Falling is wild, reckless, abandoned. Tomas’ hands anchor him like a promise. They lay him down on a bed soft as heather. 

“I saw you,” Marcus says as Tomas unties Marcus’ shoes. “In the morning, picking out my digs." 

Tomas tugs off Marcus’ shoes and socks and says, "Oh?”

“Woke up and watched you.”

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I’m not. I’d be sorry if you haven’t." 

Marcus is still wearing his pants, jeans, no good for sleeping in. He tries to undo his own belt, but when he fumbles once, twice, Tomas says softly, "Here,” and puts his hands over Marcus’. Together, they snake the belt free, and Tomas wraps it up around his hand before he places it on the bedside table. 

“Not how I pictured this,” Marcus says. The room is spinning, but just a little, and isn’t it always? The earth and all, rotating and everything. Lying down hurts and his chest is on fire, but Tomas’ hands are on his hips. 

“You sound terrible,” Tomas says.

“Sexy rasp.” And Marcus coughs. He coughs and he coughs and he keeps coughing, rolls over onto his stomach with his head hanging over the edge of the bed, and coughs until it feels like his ribs are set to crack, and just when he thinks that he cannot stand to scrape his lungs once more, something hacking, thick, and large comes up. Marcus spits the gob of it into a tissue Tomas hands him, mucous and saliva and drops of sweat, and he takes a shuddering breath of clear air. Feels like the loosening of a corset, like breaking free from the rack. And Tomas, Tomas sprawls half on top of him, his ear pressed between Marcus’ shoulder blades, his hands stroking his arms up and down. 

“Deep breath,” Tomas says, and Marcus obeys, and it doesn’t hurt. It will soon. Marcus knows that. But right now, the air whistles cleanly through him, and he’s not cold anymore. He’s drenched in sweat and so fucking tired he can’t keep his eyes open, but he’s not cold. Tomas gets up and then Marcus is a little cold, but Tomas rolls Marcus over onto his back, his hands lingering on him like he doesn’t want to let go, and when Marcus shivers at the touch, Tomas says, “You’re soaked.”

“Better get me out of these wet clothes,” Marcus murmurs. God, he’s tired. God, he could just go to sleep. He could. If he wanted. He could just sleep. 

Tomas’ hands, back on Marcus’ hips, and then the fly of his pants, and now they’re pulling Marcus’ jeans down, and the motel room AC hits Marcus’ feverish skin like a blizzard. Tomas towels him off and covers him up. He gets a washcloth from the bathroom and washes Marcus’ face with cool water. It feels so nice Marcus immediately distrusts it. 

“Stop, stop,” Marcus mutters through thick lips, useless guilt flaring up. “I’m not sick. You don’t, you don’t–”

“You are sick,” Tomas says, quiet and certain. “And I am going to take care of you." 

Tomas wakes up early and picks out Marcus’ outfit for the day, sorts through the scant collection of tired garments to fold a look along the seams, to leave old rags crisp as a promise. He buys new socks and underwear and adds that silently to the collection. When he thought Marcus was asleep, he shined Marcus’ shoes. Why, Marcus wants to ask, but his throat hurts so much, and Tomas is so high up on the mountain that he would never be able to hear Marcus shouting. Marcus doesn’t ask. Tomas answers anyway, the washcloth cold as a kiss, his voice soft as a secret. "Let me take care of you. Someone must." 

No one has, Marcus almost says, but that’s not true anymore, is it, and anyway Marcus accidentally closes his eyes instead of speaking, and now Marcus sleeps.


	2. the martyrdom of st. valentine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for an Ash Wednesday/Valentine's Day prompt, Tomas and Marcus get stranded.

After Tomas gets off the phone with AAA, Marcus–who has been entirely too relaxed about the breakdown of their only form of transportation and, frankly, the closest thing they have to a home–says, “Guess we’re giving up driving for Lent.”

“It’s the alternator,” Tomas says. “It won’t take long to fix.”

“You think it’s the alternator.”

“I  _know_  it’s the alternator.”

“You knew that we were supposed to take exit 64 back there.”

“That was two weeks ago and the map was confusing. Who uses maps? No one.” Tomas kicks the front tire, but not very hard. With their luck, it would shoot off like a rocket if you bumped it too hard. “Did you hear how the clicking stopped? The battery died and the engine isn’t turning over.”

Marcus squints at the horizon where, someday, a tow truck will come to rescue them. “We’ll see how that goes. Might just get a new car.”

“That’s a waste.”

“Waste’s spending on a part what you spend on the whole car. It was a cheap car.”

“And now we’re broken down in the desert.”

“Yeah, well, guess that’s a lesson for you.”

“I am not the one who bought the car.”

“That’s why you don’t get to complain about the car. You can pick out the next one.”

“Fine. Send Bennett the bill for our new Prius.”

“The Vatican will love that.”

Tomas and Marcus share a moment of what might be companionable silence if Tomas could stop muttering darkly in Spanish under his breath. Marcus lights up another cigarette.

“Those smell disgusting,” Tomas says because if he’s cranky, surely Marcus should have the decency to be cranky as well.

Marcus blows a cloud. “Rank,” he agrees. “You want a puff?”

“No.” Tomas had said yes once. He’d spent ten minutes hacking uncontrollably in the passenger seat as Marcus swung between sympathy and full-throated laughter. Cloves. Marcus has no taste buds.

Marcus takes another drag and says, “Sorry about this.” He taps out some ash, orange fragments of fire in a light shower to the ground. “It’s not what you wanted tonight.”

It’s not. It’s a petty thing to be upset about–God, surely, will understand their reasons for missing church today. There is a twelve year old who just this morning ceased to share her body with anyone but herself. But if only they could have stayed. The family had nearly insisted they rest with them a while or at least accept a home cooked dinner. But the sheriff decided he hated the look of Tomas’ face, and Marcus had decided in turn that he hated the look of the sheriff’s, and it wasn’t safe for them to stick around. So they hit the road, and they drove, and the car suggested that the original plan of staying put had been the better one.

“I've never missed Ash Wednesday,” Tomas says. Grumbles, to be honest. 

“Sorry to be the streak-breaker,” Marcus says. “God usually keeps me away from churches for most of Lent. Demons are mean bloody bastards at Lent.”

“Really?”

“You’ll see soon enough. Easter’s a nightmare.”

Tomas contemplates this as Marcus takes another drag. “When are demons least troublesome?”

“October,” Marcus says. “They don’t like Halloween.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“Guess you’ll have to stick around until Halloween.” Marcus grins. “Wait and see for yourself.”

Tomas shakes his head, smiling despite himself, mood improved despite his preference to sulk a while longer. He leans back against the side of the car. If he closes his eyes, he can smell the incense of St. Anthony’s, the burn of it, the holy stink. The solemn weight of it swinging on the chain as he tried his best not to sneeze. “I miss service,” Tomas says wistfully. “We’ve missed so many Sundays.”

“Ash Wednesday isn’t an obligation, at least.”

“It would still be nice.”

“A lot of things are nice.”

“True,” says Tomas. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we say some of those things now and then?”

After a moment, Marcus says, “I miss service too. It’s quiet. Sometimes it’s nice to meet God quietly.”

“Chat with him peacefully. No one vomiting or bleeding.”

“Only some screaming.”

They laugh in the crisp evening air, the desert making its abrupt switch from daytime heat to the evening chill.

Marcus says, “We have ash.”

It’s stupid, pulling the ashtray out, maybe sacrilegious though Tomas admits he didn’t cover this in seminary. They’re both giggling a little as they take turns blessing the ashes; Tomas makes sure to enunciate that the butts still mixed in are  _not_  included in the sanctification. “Come on,” Marcus says, “I was going to use one as a marker. Draw in the cross with precision.”

“Don’t you dare,” Tomas says, which is waving a red flag in front of a bull normally, but this time Marcus just rolls his eyes, smiling, and holds the tray in his hands. He dips his thumb in. Tomas trembles a little from the cold as Marcus, with sudden intensity, presses his thumb to Tomas’ forehead. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” He says the words that Tomas said a thousand times, more, much more, the words Tomas said until imbuing them with meaning exhausted him with repetition. But it’s simple, when Tomas dips his thumb in the ash and crosses Marcus’ forehead, to make the words mean something. They are dust. They are surrounded by dust. They are caked in dust. The wind kicks up dust. Look—they’re here, together, out in the dust.

“Repent,” Tomas says, looking into Marcus’ soft blue eyes, “and believe in the gospel.”

Marcus’s mouth twitches. Tomas is not quite sure what the joke is.

“Amen,” Marcus says, and finally looks away. Tomas realizes that he’s been cupping Marcus’ face.

The sun’s low down in the west now, and the sky’s on fire. It’s a good day for sorrow, Tomas decides. Sorrow ought to be as beautiful as it is grand.

Tomas joins Marcus in leaning against the car, and when their arms press together, neither man moves away. The desert is cold, after all. They watch the sunset together, clove cigarettes etched into their foreheads. Marcus says, “Yours may not count, with me not being a real priest.”

“Shut up,” Tomas says. “I have been blessed. Do you think the alternator will cost more than five hundred?”

After a pause, Marcus says, “If it does, we’ll get a new car.”

“That’s a terrible attitude.”

“It’s a terrible car. If we’re stuck in town for a while, we’ll make it to a Sunday service.”

“Good,” says Tomas. “Did you know, the first time I was allowed to help with Ash Wednesday, I knocked over a candle on the altar with the incense. Nearly set the Bible on fire.”

“Always knew you were doing the work of the Devil,” Marcus says, almost proudly, as a tow truck carting its usual cross comes at last over the horizon.


	3. ask the beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: Peter is some kind of wildlife rehab person, who meets Marcus when he shows up on his doorstep at 2 am with an injured baby raccoon or something, and Peter rolls up his sleeves like yes I am absolutely ready to help rehabilitate this ragged wary feral creature and also the raccoon

“So can you help him?” the man asks like he’s expecting the answer to be no. He matches the raccoon he brought in–a scraggly, scrambling creature, ready to bite.

Peter rubs the back of his index finger down the raccoon’s nose and calculates how much time he’s about to invest rehabilitating the little guy. “I should be able to patch him up,” Peter says.

The man’s shoulder’s relax, but only just, and he nods. He looks tired. No surprise there, Peter supposes, it is three in the morning, but this isn’t “midnight walk gone long” kind of tired or even “insomnia again” kind of tired. This is war zone tired, fresh from a war zone tired, and it’s an unsettling look to see on a man’s face in rural Washington.

Unsettling but not surprising. If there’s one thing that Peter’s learned the older he’s got, it’s that there are war zones everywhere.

“Usually when someone brings me an animal, it’s because they’ve been hit by a car. This doesn’t look like that,” Peter says. He raises his eyebrows at the man who doesn’t reply. “If there’s someone around here that enjoys hurting animals, I’d like to know about it.”

“There was,” the man says. “It’s gone.”

It is a curious pronoun here. Peter trusts the sentence nonetheless. The man sounds as certain as he is tired. The pale skin in his face is translucent and bruised by weariness. Peter can trace his veins at a glance. He’s leaning against the wall like it’s all that’s holding him up. Peter’s sure as hell not gonna let him drive anywhere after this. Not when he can barely walk.

“Good,” Peter says. “Do you want some tea?”

The man blinks. He’s got good eyes, Peter thinks too wistfully–they’re blue as a cold spring sky. “Tea?”

“I’ve got cocoa too,” Peter says. “I just thought you might like tea. Being an English chap and all.” Peter tries to say that last bit as English-y as Audrey as Eliza, which is to say not at all but with gusto. The man rewards him with a laugh that’s nearly as warming as the promised cocoa.

Oh, Peter thinks, surprised. Is that what I’m feeling? And then he notices again the man’s smile, a good smile, even if it’s as tired as the rest of him, and he thinks, yes, you old fool. That is what you’re feeling.

“You’re very talented,” says the man.

Peter sure he grins like a dope. “Just wait till you hear my Dick van Dyke.”

The man still has his arms crossed. Peter had thought it was hostility; now he thinks it’s from the cold. He’s not dressed for the weather, that’s for sure. His sweater is more hole than fabric, and it’s been tugged on and off so many times that the neckline practically slouches off shoulder. His boots look like they’ve come through a few dozen forced marches. His jeans look worn enough to be soft as cotton.

The man catches Peter looking at his legs. He doesn’t look like he objects. “You always this hospitable to everyone who comes banging on your door at two in the morning?” he asks.

Peter takes the risk, and says, “Just the handsome ones.”

It’s always a gamble. Especially with men wearing crosses and saint’s medals. But the man blushes, and smiles, and looks away like he doesn’t know what to say. And sometimes Peter makes a smart bet.


	4. unclean things in god's sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for prompt: "Marcus/Peter + someone needs a bath?"

Peter’s bathtub wasn’t quite long enough for him. Marcus felt like a kid again, scrunched up in the wash basin in the kitchen with his mum scrubbing him before church like she could scour the stink of their family off.  _Too poor for dirt_ , she used to mutter. It wasn’t a motto Marcus lived by. Clean as they got, they were still poor, still miserable, still angry, drunk, murderous, a grimy little family like some caricature of the poor. 

Didn’t matter now. Didn’t matter. The cottage was torn down. His father turned his mother to dust. And that nightmare never smelled so strongly of lavender. 

Marcus turned the bar of soap over in his hands. He couldn’t remember the last time something so nice touched his skin. He anointed himself hotel soap when he could, scrubbed his armpits in gas station bathrooms with hand soap the rest of the time. His skin cracked in the winter and burned in the summer. He itched, habitually. The state of his nails would have gotten him beaten at the boy’s home. 

Peter’s soap felt like money. Marcus felt like he was smudging it just holding it. 

He scrubbed himself down with it anyway until the water turned grey. He drained the tub and cursed as he used toilet paper to scrub out the dirt left in the bottom of the tub. He flushed the evidence away and ran the tub again. He washed himself like his mother was watching, her hand over her mouth as she waited for church, waited for the promise of a better world than this shit one. When Marcus’ skin was so tender and pink that it would sting to dress himself, he gave himself one more once over, and rinsed. The water, which had started out boiling, was room temperature by the time he was done. He wondered if he should run the bath one more time. 

“Stupid cow,” his father had taunted his mother. “You think what’s wrong with him washes off?”

Marcus drained the bath, and cleaned out the tub again, and dried himself. Peter had given him soft dark blue towels that matched and smelled like dryer sheets. Even his raw skin couldn’t object to their touch. 

Marcus walked loudly down the hallway, lingering on the places where the floor creaked, so that by the time he got to the bedroom door, Peter would be awake. Marcus wouldn’t startle him into a nightmare waking him up. Marcus couldn’t turn and run now. He rapped his knuckles against the door, which opened at his touch. 

Peter, wrapped in a grey comforter, his hair sticking up, peered at Marcus. “Hey,” he said, his voice rasped with sleep. 

“Hey,” said Marcus, his mouth bone dry. “Thought I might see if that offer still stood.”

Without hesitation, Peter pulled back the blanket. Marcus turned off the hall light and found his way under the cover of the dark. It didn’t matter–when Peter reached for him, he could feel Marcus shaking. “Get under here where it’s warm,” Peter said. 

Peter’s bed was a grown man’s bed. It cost money and it smelled good. Marcus cost five pounds and smelled like sweat and dirt. He shouldn’t be here. 

Peter’s arm wrapped around him. Peter’s head settled against the crook of Marcus’ shoulder. Peter turned his face into Marcus’ neck and breathed deep. And stayed there. And so did Marcus. And eventually, whether they belonged or not, they both fell asleep. 


	5. the word doc is titled 'dumb coffeeshop au' and that's what i'm sticking with

Luis is entering seventh grade this year, which means algebra much to everyone’s surprise, which means that Tomas and Olivia Ortega’s Kid Free Family Fun Time over at Tomas’ apartment involves math workbooks and youtube tutorials on the quadratic equation. They get as far as the specifics of the FOIL method, when Olivia leans back in her chair, rubs her eyes, and says, “I need coffee.”

“I’ll get it,” Tomas says, already standing.

“You’re so embarrassing,” Olivia says, which is _rich_ coming from someone who at fifteen had once sent Tomas a novella length letter about how she had gained and lost a senior year boyfriend in her dramatic coming of age story. Tomas does not remind her of this. He is a good brother like that.

“It’s embarrassing to like coffee?” Tomas asks innocently, because he is innocent.

“You have a coffee pot,” Olivia calls after him, but he can’t hear her, whoops, the door closes so quickly.

 

“I was wondering where you were,” Marcus says when Tomas comes in. “It’s nearly noon, I thought you died.”

“Maybe I got my morning coffee elsewhere,” Tomas says in a lighthearted yet charming tone.

“Betrayal,” Marcus gasps.

The short haired teen girl on register who wears quite a lot of shirts about witchcraft rolls her eyes so hard Tomas worries she’ll hurt herself. He has learned this is her equivalent to a smile, except she does also smile, but mostly at her siblings and sometimes at Marcus and once at Tomas when he said that he liked her nose piercing. She informed him it was called a septum. She also told him he’d look good with one. When Tomas asked Marcus—in a friendly, joking way—if Marcus thought Tomas could pull off a septum, Marcus looked at him incredulously and said, “With that face?”

Tomas is a grown man, and so he did not spend the rest of that afternoon analyzing every possibly interpretation of that sentence.

“To go,” Tomas says reluctantly when Marcus starts to make his order.

“Still tackling middle school math with your sister?” Marcus asks.

Tomas decides it’s a perfectly normal thing to be utterly charmed by the man remembering what Tomas said he was doing this time last week, because that’s an utterly charming thing to do and anyone would agree. “We just need to stay one lesson ahead of Luis. He’s still struggling with the homework, but he’s starting to get it.”

Marcus hums. “You’re good to him.”

Tomas smiles and ducks his head. “I wish we were good at math,” he deflects. “I couldn’t even do it the first time around.”

“No? Always took you for a nerdy little teacher’s pet.” When Tomas scoffs in offense, Marcus grins. “It’s the glasses.”

“Lots of people wear glasses,” Tomas says.

“Lots of nerdy little teacher’s pets,” Marcus seems to agree. “It’s a good look.”

In the mental yarn map that Tomas adds to for no particular reason every time he visits this coffee shop, which is every day and usually twice, the last exchange would unspool mysteries to explore for hours. “What about you?” Tomas says rather than pursue what _good look_ means when juxtaposed with _nerdy_ and _little_. “Were you good at math?”

“Alright,” Marcus says, now no longer looking at him. “When we studied it. Didn’t do much with it in school.” Tomas gets the feeling that he has accidentally moved from a park to a minefield when Marcus looks back at him and winks. “That’s why Verity handles all the money.”

“I’m stealing everything,” Verity says, as Tomas processes the wink.

“Enjoy your thirty bucks and odd change,” Marcus tells her, and hands Tomas two drinks. When he reaches for his wallet, Marcus waves him off. “On the house.”

“Really?” Tomas asks.

“That’s bad money math, boss man,” Verity says. “FYI.”

Marcus snaps the towel he wipes up coffee grounds with in her general direction as he smiles at Tomas. “Can’t have you skulking off to other coffee houses, can I? Gotta keep your favor.”

“Ah,” Tomas says, aiming in one last ditch attempt for lighthearted and charming. “Trying to bribe your way into my affections.”

“I hope it’s working,” Marcus says and sounds strangely serious. “I can’t lose you.”

 

Ten minutes later, Tomas kicks open the door to his apartment and yells, “Olivia, you’re right, I’m very embarrassing and I need your help. He _winked_ at me. He winked at me _twice._ ”

With the clarity of purpose of a woman called to answer the question she has been waiting so long to be asked, Olivia shuts the workbook and the laptop and faces her brother, bearing two lattes and a flustered expression, with a grim sort of glee on her face, and that’s the end of the math lesson that day. 


	6. children will listen

When Rose asked Harper if she wanted to do some theater this spring, Harper said no. Then Harper went away, had dinner, fell asleep, had a nightmare, woke up, cried for a while, went back to sleep, and called Rose in the morning. What kind of theater, Harper asked quietly. Quietly was the only way she ever asked things.

With other kids, Rose replied.

Did Harper have to, Harper asked.

No, no, no, of course not, Rose assured her.

Harper chewed her lips. She chewed her lips a lot, and her lips looked like it.

“Okay,” Harper said, but quietly, very quietly, so that maybe Rose wouldn’t hear her, and then Harper wouldn’t really have to do it.

Rose heard her. She said this was great. She said she’d call the school right away. She told Harper she was proud of her.

Harper hung up, and tried to figure out the difference between excitement and dread.  

The school put on two shows a year, a play in the winter and a musical in spring. Harper missed the play. She’d still been in the hospital while St. Benedict’s had muddled through  _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. Sister Simone had declared it the theater department’s greatest production since  _Bye Bye Birdie,_ the year before. Mother Bernadette, of course, had been officially silent on her opinion, but everyone spoke almost in a daze about how she had smiled and given a solemn thumb’s up.

Rose was the one who signed Harper up for theater, but it was Andy’s idea. “She’s shy and she loves musicals,” he told her after one of Harper’s check-ins. “It’s a perfect way to get her to hang out with some kids her own age who aren’t her new siblings.” Harper still wasn’t back in school. She hadn’t been in school for months, well before CPS took her from her mother’s house, and she refused to go now. Andy taught her and Grace at home; Rose checked in once a week. It wasn’t a perfect set up but it was going well. Harper had spoken to Caleb unprompted just last week. She’d let Verity drag her outside. They’d skipped rocks at the lake. Shelby had given her a piggyback ride home.

(“I have a demon in me,” she’d whispered into Shelby’s back, and his grip had tightened. “Mom tried to get rid of it. That’s why they took me away.”

Shelby believed in God and The Bible and the literal existence of demons, but he also had seen the state Harper had been in when Andy had brought her home from the hospital, and he had prayed with her through the nightmares since. He had no doubt there’d been a demon in Harper’s home, but he doubted it had been in Harper.)

Andy walked Harper to the school a few times before they went it. Andy said Harper didn’t have to go in until she wanted to. Harper wanted to, but she couldn’t. Andy told her that was alright. He texted Father Marcus before they set out, then texted him when they got back.  _Not today_ ,  _padre_ , he sent.

 _That’s fine,_  Father Marcus texted back. (Andy did not know how much time those words took, Marcus hunched over his flip phone and scowling through his reading glasses while Mother Bernadette silently laughed at him.)  _Tell her she is always welcome._

(“You’re good with the kids,” Mother Bernadette told Father Marcus during what he had dubbed her profane hour, which they spent sharing a cup of tea and moaning about their lives.

“Course I am,” he replied as he stole a bit of muffin off her plate. “I’m very charming.”

“Hmm.” She conveyed quite a lot of doubt in one quick hum. When his hand reached back towards her plate, she slapped it away again. “We haven’t got a theater teacher for the rest of the year, you know.” Father Martin, who Marcus had been temporarily covering for, had decided in the wake of his possession and exorcism that life was too short not to take that vacation in Barbados that he’d been dreaming of for three decades.

“Yeah, he sprinted for the airport, didn’t he?” Marcus shook his head. God knew after two months of cobbling together twelve to eighteen year olds through Shakespeare, he could understand wanting to take a kip, but fleeing the country seemed excessive. They were good kids. Loud, rambunctious, dramatic, sure, but good.

You could stay on,” she said.

Marcus laughed. Mother Bernadette didn’t. That was when Marcus realized she was serious.

“I can’t,” he said.

“You have so far,” she replied.

“That was for a job.”

“This is a job.”

“Not my job.”

Mother Bernadette sighed. Marcus was a nice man, when he wished to be, and more tender than he ought to be by a half, but he did have a horrid martyrdom complex. It came with the territory, she supposed. “The world is full of exorcists, Marcus. Our parish is sorely lacking in theater teachers.” She checked her watch and used her last moments of speech for the day to say, “God won’t begrudge you a sabbatical.”

“The Devil might,” Marcus replied, but Mother Bernadette only gazed tranquically and silently upon him. The conversation for the day was over. Silence was, strangely enough, a great way to get the last word.

One week later, Father Marcus announced to his small class that he was staying on until the end of the year.

The cheers caught him off guard. He never quite knew what to do with approval.)

One day, Andy and Harper walked past the school, and Harper tugged on his sleeve. “What’d you say we go this way today?” Andy said, pretending to be casual and not at all excited and proud. He wasn’t a very good actor, Harper thought. He wouldn’t do good in theater.

The school was quiet when they walked in, and then louder and louder as they walked back. By the time they were outside the doors to the auditorium, the noise was almost deafening. Even Andy looked concerned by this point. Harper stood on her tiptoes to look through the windows. Sixteen kids sat in a circle on the stage, pounding the floor and screaming while a kid in the center attempted to breakdance. He wasn’t doing very well until a couple girls grabbed his legs while he was lying down and helped him spin. “Huh,” said Andy.

“They promise me it’s a real teambuilding activity,” said Father Marcus behind him. Andy and Harper both jumped. Father Marcus smiled apologetically down at her. He was English and he had a cup of coffee and a big nose. “I take their word for it. Never had anything like this when I was in school.”

“You’re the theater director?” Andy asked. It didn’t sound like he’d meant it as a question.

“Interim,” Father Marcus said. “Until the end of the year. Casey’s really the one running it, her and her sister, they just need a faculty member to sign off that the kids haven’t started eating each other. You’ll like them,” he said to Harper. “Casey’s looking forward to meeting you. She’s been dying for a script supervisor, and I told her you’d be perfect.”

“What’s a script supervisor?” Harper asked.

Father Marcus shrugged. “Beats me. But you’ll be perfect.”

Harper smiled, just a little, and Father Marcus smiled back a lot. The kids in the auditorium all screamed. Harper flinched. Andy rested his hand on her shoulder. Father Marcus sat down on his heels and said, “We’re doing  _Into The Woods_. Have you heard it?”

Harper shook her head.

“Neither had I, till Casey made me listen. It’s good. School only wants us doing Act One, but Mother Bernadette wants the whole thing, and she can out argue anyone, even Bennett. She took a vow of silence. Very hard to argue with that.” Father Marcus eyed her. “It’s a good trick, isn’t it? Silence. Holy, if you do it right.”

Harper didn’t say anything.

“Course, yelling’s good too.” He nodded his head towards the door. “Which one do you feel like today?”

Yelling, it turned out. It turned out that Harper had been waiting a long, long time for a proper scream.


End file.
